The Villainous Family is Against Independence - Chapter 68. They Never Abandoned Me

Ever since I was invited to the Severes capital mansion, I thought I might be able to get some information about my father.

But I never dreamed I would see him in person this soon.

Looking at my father’s face for the first time in my life was a strange experience.

‘Do I look …..like him?’

I was not sure. Maybe it was because his eyes were closed, or because I didn’t recognize him.

It didn’t seem real that the Duke of Severes, whom I had only heard about through rumors, was in front of me.

‘They were right when they said he was in a coma.’

It seemed bizarre to see him lying in a glass coffin when he was clearly alive.

Thump, thump.

I felt my heart beating harder than usual and tried to calm myself.

I looked back at Felix Hicklemeyer, who seemed to be observing me.

“Why have you brought me here?”

Without knowing what this man’s intentions are, I should not reveal any of my cards.

That I am actually the daughter of the Duke of Severes, not of the Duke of Perdia, and that I know it.

Felix smiled bitterly and stared at his uncle in the coffin.

“Well, it’s not like it’s a family secret or anything, as the word has already spread around, but…… the Head of the Severes family is currently absent.”

“Why did you bother to inform me, a mere outsider, of that fact?”

There’s a difference in the weight of a rumor and a fact. Rumors are rumors, but it’s a different story when they become facts.

After I leave the mansion like this, what would happen if I were to spread the word that the Duke of Severes was sleeping in a glass coffin.

Felix shrugged, as if my worries were nothing.

“I don’t understand why you would intentionally bring in the young Lady of Perdia to stand before an unconscious man.”

“Well…….”

As he dallied, I tried to make my own guess.

‘Does he know that I am the biological daughter of the head of House Severes, after all? And if so! By any chance! Is Felix planning to get rid of me, his only blood relative, so he can devour House Severes……?!’

I backed away from Felix and shook my head.

“I have no clue why you’re doing this.”

When you’re not sure of anything, ignorance is the answer.

Felix, who had been looking down at the Duke of Severes, lifted his head and looked up at me. His red eyes narrowed, and then his lips parted.

“I beg you, Lady Perdia. Please wake my uncle.”

“……Huh?”

What the hell is he talking about? Asking me to wake the Duke of Severes?

When I pursed my lips at the absurdity of the request, Felix spoke calmly, as if he knew I would.

“My uncle fell into a coma while confronting one of the Seven Deadly Sins.”

The resurrected Seven Deadly Sins?

I flinched, and Greed in my arms reacted to the words.

“……!”

I clamped my hand over the fox’s muzzle, preventing it from saying anything. Fortunately, Felix didn’t seem to mind the behavior.

“I understand that His Excellency the Duke of Severes fell into a coma under such circumstances, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Well, that was about twenty years ago…… I was very young, so I don’t remember it very well.”

“…….”

“At the time, the Severes family was in a state of turmoil because the head of the family had fallen into a coma. Then a prophet, an incarnation of Ishtar, came and prophesied that one day the Savior of the World would wake him up, and then mysteriously disappeared.”

“So, that savior is me?”

“Yes.”

Felix answered firmly, without hesitation.

He thinks that I might be the only one who can wake the Duke of Severes. My head throbbed with the enormity of my sudden task.

I pressed my temples together and sighed heavily.

“There must be a mistake, there’s no way I can wake someone from a coma.”

Even what had happened at the Fountain of Ishtar in the first place had been the product of coincidence. A mere misadventure caused by coming into contact with/encountering a sin.

In contrast to me, Felix’s thoughts were firm.

“I suppose one must see to believe, though I’m sure the Lady will not fail to be able to wake him up.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, if I told you I’d known it when I saw you…… then, you wouldn’t believe me.”

I must have given him a blatantly obnoxious look. Felix shrugged and raised his arms.

“Well, I’m a Severus, after all, and I can use power.”

Although he’s only in one of the collateral branches of Severes, he has the blood of the family, so of course he must have powers.

However, in social circles, only the strong powers of the immediate family were talked about, so I was not aware of his power.

It was impossible to know the power of Count Hicklemeyer, who had been abroad for so long.

“What sort of power are you talking about?”

“I can see the color of souls, though it’s not very useful.”

The color of a soul?

It certainly wasn’t a combat or supportive ability. But what did that have to do with my ability to be able to awaken the Duke of Severes?

Still staring at me, Felix turned his head slightly and looked down at the Duke of Severes in his coffin.

“It’s the first time I’m seeing it.”

“…… what?”

“Someone with the same color of soul as my uncle.”

“……!”

I had to try very hard not to sound surprised this time.

The same color of soul…….

‘Because I’m the biological daughter of the Duke of Severes?’

It was a likely assumption.

Given the nature of the Four Great Families, where the power of the ancestors was passed down through the blood from generation to generation, it was not unusual for a father and daughter to have the same-colored soul.

But that was not enough for me to awaken the Duke of Severes. So why was Felix Hicklemeyer looking at me with such conviction in his eyes?

His expectations were too much for me.

“Unless I am not the savior the prophet spoke of.”

“Then it was my fault for being wrong, and I respectfully apologize.”

After all that, I couldn’t bring myself to coldly refuse Felix’s request.

Bringing an outsider, someone with whom he’d never spoken, all the way here just because they shared the same color of soul, must mean that he was desperate to wake his uncle.

I sighed softly and looked down at Greed in my arms.

“Be a good boy and play for a while, Black.”

“Kkiyu?”

‘If you mess around, you might die.’

“Kii, Kkiyu…….”

I set him down on the floor, smiling sweetly on the outside but giving Greed a short, harsh warning on the inside.

As I turned my attention back to Felix, I suddenly felt uncomfortable.

‘No, hang on.’

He’s seen the color of my soul, which means he knows I’m the ‘wizard Elby’ he met in the tower.

‘Then when you said we were going to meet again, were you talking about today?’

I glanced at Felix’s face, but he was only smiling wryly. I decided to save that for later.

I took a few steps towards the glass coffin where the Duke of Severes slept.

“How do I wake the duke?” I asked. When there was no response, I bluntly added, “You have no idea, do you?”

“…….”

My, isn’t that irresponsible.

Felix only shrugged, as if he really didn’t know what to do.

I crouched beside the coffin and studied the Duke of Severes in his glass case.

The neat forehead, straight features, a slightly pale complexion.

I wonder what kind of father you would have been, had you been awake. Would he have known I existed?

If so, in a family life that never happened, would I have not been so lonely…….?

In the midst of these fleeting thoughts, I made a decision.

‘Let’s start by making contact.’

I decided to start by holding his hand, and without hesitation I reached out. The moment my fingertips touched the back of the Duke of Severes hand–

“……!”

“Lady……?!”

Pow!

Consciousness faded along with the light that once filled my vision.

***

Light and darkness flickered and flashed.

Before I could adjust to the increasingly bright vision, I heard a voice.

“Arcelia.”

It was a stranger’s voice, but somehow it didn’t feel like the first time I’d heard it.

The man’s low, gentle voice put me at ease.

“Why are you calling me, Richard?”

The woman who answered also sounded familiar.

Arcelia, and Richard.

They were the names of my biological parents.

As the realization dawned on me, the scene unfolded before my eyes. I was in someone’s bedroom.

I looked down and saw myself as transparent as a ghost.

‘Heuk, I became a ghost.’

It seemed that I was invisible to others.

The conversation between the Duke of Severes and my mother, Arcelia, continued even as I panicked at the suddenness of the situation.

“The air is cold. Come inside,” the duke murmured.

“Ah, but it’s quite pleasant.”

I was startled to see a woman turn around, smiling faintly. Dark golden hair, light pink eyes, and a smile that curved like a half-moon.

‘I thought that was me.’

Or, more accurately, I felt like I was looking at my future self.

There was no way I wouldn’t recognize her. That was my birth mother.

‘Then, are these the memories of the Duke of Severes?’

I looked at the man’s profile as he approached my mum. It was a different feeling to see him close up.

His red eyes, dripping with love that cannot be hidden, captured her, as if to inscribe her in his mind. To etch her in his soul.

The Duke of Severes picked up a blanket and draped it over my mother’s shoulders.

“Arcel, I wonder if…….” After a moment’s hesitation, the duke asked with difficulty. “Are you thinking of Sylvester?”

“Sylvester?”

If it’s Sylvester, it’s the name of the Duke of Perdia.

I was taken aback by the sudden mention of the Duke of Perdia’s name. The rest of their conversation was enough to shock me.

“I only have you, Richard.”

“Did he not cling desperately to you?”

Goodness.

The Duke of Perdia, clinging desperately to my mother?

‘My real father, my real mother, and my fake father(?) were in a love triangle?’

But the Duke of Perdia disliked the stories of my mother to the point of suppressing them.

Momentarily flustered by my unexpected discovery of a passionate love triangle, I hastily regained my composure.

‘This is not the time. I have to wake the Duke of Severes.’

But how can I wake him when he will not be able to see me?

Before I could dwell on that, the voice continued.

“Arcel. Arcelia. I will not let you regret choosing me.”

The Duke of Severes’s words changed the scene. What had been a bedroom was now a completely different place.

It was a place I recognized. It was the greenhouse of the House of Severes, where the glass coffin of the Duke of Severes was kept.

But in the new scene, my biological mother, Arcelia, was crying hysterically.

“You, you, how could you do that!”

“Don’t…… cry, Arcel.”

The duke’s fingertips trembled, a pitiful grimace on his face. He wanted to wipe away her tears, but his body didn’t seem to move.

“Why, why are you doing what I have not asked you to do? It is my duty, Richard.”

“You are mine……. So, your duty is also mine.”

A dry laugh lingered at the corners of the Duke of Severes’s mouth, then faded.

“…. In the end, I failed to keep…… anything.”

I didn’t know why the Duke of Severes was on the ground and my mother was crying, but I did know this.

That the Duke had sacrificed something to protect her.

“I wanted to protect…… you….”

A hand, lifted with difficulty, cupped my mother’s cheek, catching some of the tears streaming down her face.

“You and our precious baby, Elodie, too…….”

‘Me…….?’

The duke had known of my existence?

My surprise was short-lived. Like the Duke’s blurring vision, the landscape and the voice began to fade away.

With a thud, the duke’s hand fell limply to the floor, and so did his consciousness.

In the midst of it, a soft voice continued like a lullaby.

“Be patient, Richard. Our child will save you. So don’t worry about anything…….”

“…….”

“Good night, Richard.”

No more voices were heard.

***

In my floating consciousness, I realized one thing.

My biological parents never left me…….

Me.

‘They never abandoned me.’

***